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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26508430">Match.com</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearbaitbrook/pseuds/bearbaitbrook'>bearbaitbrook</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Riverdale (TV 2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, Mentioned Archie Andrews, One Shot, Online Dating, Online Relationship, Pandemics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:42:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,056</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26508430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearbaitbrook/pseuds/bearbaitbrook</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She didn't understand how it was possible for her to miss someone that she had never officially met before. But when Covid case numbers increased dramatically again, and talks of allowing people to end their self isolation vanished, Betty soon found out that it was very possible to miss someone you only knew through a computer screen. </p><p>A Bughead online dating oneshot set during the Covid-19 lockdowns.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Betty Cooper &amp; Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Match.com</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A one-shot that's been floating around in my head for a while now. This entire work was typed on my phone and auto correct doesn't like the name Betty. Un-beta'd, so any Bettu's, Beaties and any other variations of the name you find, as well as any other mistakes are all mine.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Chuck Clayton would like to chat with you; Trev Brown would like to chat with you; Sweat Pea Phillips would like to chat with you… Veronica, what the hell did you do??" Betty cried into the phone. The emails from Match.com had started pouring in earlier that afternoon, and Betty knew that there was only one person to blame.</p><p>"Ok, fine! Don't be mad! You've just seemed so lonely since you and Archie broke up, and then the pandemic started and everyone is lonely and you're in your apartment alone, and I feel bad because I have Reggie and so I might have… signed you up for an online dating site."</p><p>"Veronica!" Betty was fuming. "I can't believe you did that! And without my permission!"</p><p>"I just want you to be happy, B" Veronica countered defensively. </p><p>"Do you know how my mother would react if she found out I'm using a dating site after breaking up with Archie 'oh, he's just perfect for you, Elizabeth, I don't know why you let go of that perfect boy, you'll never have a chance with anyone this wonderful again' Andrews?? I would never hear the end of it!"</p><p>"Don't knock it until you try it Betty - will you at least consider looking at some of the boys who are interested?"</p><p>"I don't know, Veronica." It had been a year since Betty had broken up with Archie after catching him in bed with Valerie Brown, the piano player in a band called Josie and the Pussycats. Veronica was right that Betty had been lonely, especially since she had been forced to isolate alone in her apartment after Kevin decided to move in with his boyfriend, Fangs, for the duration of the crisis, but Betty didn't know if she was particularly interested in online dating, especially given the amount of judgement online daters often received.</p><p>"Please, B? If you don't find anyone who catches your eye after a week you can delete it."</p><p>"Promise?"</p><p>"Promise."</p><p>Three days later, Betty was mindlessly scrolling through the photos of people who had sent her chat requests through the dating app, when a man with dark, curly hair covered by a crown shaped beanie caught her eye. Or, more particularly, the scattering of tattoos that littered his arms did. </p><p>"Jughead Jones" she read under her breath, zooming in on one of the tattoos on his arm. It was a quote - one from Slaughterhouse Five she realized - "So it goes" written in a typewriter font. She was intrigued, and before she could talk herself out of it, she pushed the "request chat" button.</p><p>She waited with baited breath for a moment before going to wash her dinner dishes from earlier. When she came back, she had a message. A message from him.</p><p>It was another literary quote.</p><p>Jughead Jones: "I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing"</p><p>Betty reread the quote - "a booklover?" she pondered.</p><p>Betty Cooper: Vonnugut and Melville? </p><p>Jughead Jones: I'm impressed </p><p>And that's how it started. He was a free lance writer for several online fiction and creative nonfiction journals who was working on an independent novel from his apartment in Brooklyn. She was an investigative journalist for a mid sized New York City paper. He had grown up poor and alone on the proverbial 'wrong side of the tracks,' leaving his town for the big city the moment he turned eighteen, while she was the perfect girl next door, bound for greatness and who struggled to escape from under her mother's over imposing thumb. He told her that he had had serious doubts about trying the online dating thing, that he had some doubts about the dating thing in general but his sister had forced him into this. She told him about how her heart had been broken when Archie had betrayed her.</p><p>On paper, they shouldn't have worked well together. But paper was wrong.</p><p>They texted for hours that night. And then the next. And the next. They exchanged phone numbers, both deleting the dating app off of their phones, uninterested in chatting with anyone else. Soon the brightest part of Betty's day was her "good morning" message from Jughead. His was the "I can't wait to talk tomorrow, goodnight, sweet dreams" he got at the end of every day. They both enjoyed every message in between.</p><p>The first time Betty heard his voice was on the heels with an infuriating conversation with her mother, who somehow had found out that Betty had ventured into the online dating world, and had, in typical Alice Cooper fashion, had decided to tell her daughter exactly what she thought of this life choice.</p><p>Betty Cooper: Don't really want to talk tonight. I'll text you in the morning.</p><p>Jughead Jones: what's wrong?</p><p>Betty Cooper: just a bad day</p><p>Her phone rang not fifteen seconds later - it was him, calling her on the number that, up until now, had been used only for soundless text messages.</p><p>"Hello?" She answered questionly, tears thickly coating her voice.</p><p>"What's wrong, Betts?" His voice was soft and soothing and smooth, and she instantly felt a sense of calm and comfort wash over her.</p><p>"It's nice to finally hear your voice" she said softly. </p><p>"Yours too" he agreed. They talked late into the night and this time, instead of falling asleep to a goodnight message, they fell asleep to the sound of each other's breathing.</p><p>Nightly phone calls became a regular part of their routine, but that wasn't enough for either of them. They both yearned for more, to be able to hold each other tightly, to grasp their hands together, to breathe each other in. </p><p>A month after their first phone call, he finally worked up the courage to ask her on a date.</p><p>"I know that we can't meet in person" he said "but how about a Facetime date? I really want to see your face, Betts." They decided to get takeout from Pop's, a diner that they had both discovered that they loved early into their… whatever this was, and eat together over video chat. She was sending him his order, and he was sending him his - thank God for DoorDash.</p><p>She was nervous before hand, pacing her apartment, her hands wringing together. He did the same in his, fingers combing through his black curls, readjusting the charcoal beanie perched comfortingly over his head.</p><p>"What if he doesn't like what he sees?"</p><p>"What if she doesn't like what she sees?"</p><p>His face lit up the first time he saw her face and he was speechless for a moment. "You're beautiful," he told her, meaningful look in his eye. </p><p>His eyes sparkled everytime she made him laugh, and she couldn't get enough.</p><p>She called him two weeks later in the middle of the day in a panic: her neighbor, whom she had helped up the stairs five days before, had Covid, and Betty needed to go get tested. She was alone and terrified and she needed comfort. She needed him.</p><p>"I wish I could hold you, baby" he had whispered into the phone and a tear trickled down her face when she heard the sincerity in his voice.</p><p>His heart nearly stopped the day she called him in a panic about her possible exposure. He wanted to rush to her apartment, buddle her in his arms and not let go. He sent her flowers and Pops instead. "I feel like a shitty ass boyfriend," he told her on the phone that night when she thanked him. "I wish I could do more."</p><p>"You are enough, Jughead Jones," she replied earnestly. "I'm lucky that I'm yours."</p><p>"I'm in love with this girl," he thought.</p><p>"I'm in love with this boy," she mused.</p><p>Betty's scare passed uneventfully and after countless hours of phone calls and video dates, the city began to talk about lifting some restrictions. That night, they began talking about life after - after they could leave their homes, after they could meet in person, after they could stop relying on their phones to hold their relationships.</p><p>"This is real to me, Betty" he told her softly, as they agreed to meet together in person as soon as they were allowed to. "It doesn't matter to me that we've never met in person before. I know this, without a doubt."</p><p>She didn't understand how it was possible for her to miss someone that she had never officially met before. But when case numbers increased dramatically again, and talks of allowing people to end their self isolation vanished, Betty soon found out that it was very possible to miss someone you only knew through a computer screen. </p><p>"I miss you," she told him, crying disappointed tears into the phone.</p><p>"I know baby," he whispered thickly. "God, I want to hold you so fucking bad."</p><p>"Me too, Jug. What are we going to do when we finally get to meet in person?"</p><p>"I'm going to hold you and never let you go, and kiss you until you can't remember your own name" he said, voice ragged with want.</p><p>And when they did finally get to meet, that's exactly what he did. Restrictions ended and they met in Central Park the next day, unable to wait any longer before they could finally be together.</p><p>Much like their first video call, Betty paced nervously at their meeting place, anxious to meet the man who had become, without a doubt, one of the most important people in her life. She looked up and there he was, walking towards her, and tears began streaming down her face.</p><p>He was anxious, his train taking much longer than it should have to arrive at his destination and he was running late, fears of disappointing her running rampant in his mind. But then he saw her, and all of his worries faded away.</p><p>Betty was drowning under the weight of his heavy gaze, but she wouldn't have it any other way.</p><p>"It's you" she murmured, eyes roaming the face that had become so familiar to her through her computer screen. "It's really you!"</p><p>His fingers gently reached out and skimmed over her cheek bones, down her nose and stopped at the corner of her lips, tracing her face, memorizing it so he can remember it for the rest of his life.</p><p>His eyes had stopped at her lips and Betty felt herself drawing closer and closer to him, needing to feel more of anything that they couldn't have through a computer screen. His hand returned to cup her cheek, and she turned her face towards his palm, kissing it gently, before covering his hand with hers. He closed his eyes and let out a low sigh, but they shot open again as Betty shifted her weight, her arms going hesitantly around his neck, fingers gently winding into the thick, curly hair poking out from his beanie at the bottom of the neck. </p><p>He leaned down and kissed her lightly, teasingly, hinting at what was to come. He pulled away too soon for Betty's liking, and she pulled him back in for another, longer, harder kiss. She poured every feeling she ever had for him - all of the yearning, the missing, the longing - into that kiss, and it was beautiful. He seemed to do the same - his lips captured her bottom lip saying "I've missed you," the increasing pressure of his lips saying "I need you," and the gentle caress of her face saying something yet to be said. </p><p>He debated saying it. "I love you, Betty Cooper," he said, not wanting to waste a minute of the precious time he had with this girl.</p><p>She debated saying it, knowing that it was crazy, that she couldn't feel his way about a man she'd never met in person. He beat her to it. "Jughead Jones, I love you too."</p><p>He smiled at her and she smiled at him and then they held each other tightly, loathe to let go. It wasn't enough - he needed more of her and she needed more of him, and so she guided him back to her apartment, to her bed, to the ache between her thighs.</p><p>Later that night in her bed, he looked over her shoulder as she texted Veronica: "thank you."</p>
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